The Public. You Can’t Trust Them!

America is about to go to the polls to determine the next supposed “leader of the free world”. Scotland is going to vote in two years time on whether to “divorce” the rest of the United Kingdom and become an independent country.

America is the most inward-looking, polarised, often mis-informed country that I know. People there seem to see a stark choice between Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. One is seen as the Anti-Christ and a Socialist – and the most fervently fundamentalist Christian nation is not entirely sure which of those two things is worse. The other is a privileged, elitist, Mormon who has written off half of his own country and wants to unleash the other half in a dog-eat-dog approach to social unity and getting the American economy going again while bombing the heck out of Iran.

Scotland is a beautiful country and a nation with a proud history in engineering, science, call centres and soldiering and has punched above its weight for many years. But, for more than 300 years now it has been an integral part of the United Kingdom. The issues which will drive the decision to divorce or not are complex and many. And so, the politicians have decided to expand the franchise to include 16 and 17 year olds. We will entrust the outcome to Kevin – hormones, pimples, and all.

Are we mad? Why on earth would we want to throw open the answer to such important questions and decisions to the public who consistently demonstrate a lack of interest, lack of knowledge, lack of common sense, NIMBYism, prejudice, self-interest and selfishness?

Remember, these are the same (type of) people who are voting to keep Rylan in X-Factor every bloody week…….